UPDATE 9/1: The “extension” now making the rounds already happened, per our insiders: the current deal IS the extension, it expires in 2027 after Man of Tomorrow, and there’s no Batman movie.
UPDATE 8/26: TheWrap now reports Paramount “plans to keep” Gunn and Safran at DC. Per our insiders, only until the contracts run out, and Register’s exit just showed how that works.
UPDATE 8/25: The head of WB Animation, Sam Register, is now out as his contract expired and hasn’t been renewed.
UPDATE 8/24: Another sign of a co-CEO with one foot out: Gunn has cleared a day at the Javits Center for Crunchyroll’s Anime Future Forum on the eve of New York Comic Con, where DC Studios has no panel and Man of Tomorrow has no presence.
UPDATE 8/23: Add the DCU Batman to the frozen list. Filmmaker Dan Marcus says Andy Muschietti told him all work on The Brave and the Bold is on hold until after the merger is settled, the kind of long-term paper the contract won’t let the outgoing regime sign.
UPDATE 8/21: The outgoing regime is still signing paper on the way out. HBO Max greenlit the Jimmy Olsen mockumentary as The People v. Gorilla Grodd, an eight-episode, single-season order — the kind of short-term commitment the merger contract lets Gunn and Safran make without going through Ellison — one day after the Lanterns numbers.
UPDATE 8/21: The other side of the exodus is now on the record: our sources say Ellison is going all in on Batman with Reeves and Pattinson, and to keep an eye on Gal Gadot for Wonder Woman 3.
UPDATE: The culture gap behind the exodus is now visible on screen: Gunn’s Lanterns mocks the Taylor Sheridan audience Paramount is banking on.
When the time comes for James Gunn to exit DC, we’re told the goodbye is already scripted: Man of Tomorrow framed as his farewell love letter to fans as he chooses to return to his true passion, writing and directing.
“The letters are already written,” one of our insiders tells us.
Gunn’s name sits on a longer list.
Two high-level Warner Bros. Discovery executives are out the door in a month, and both exits arrived gift-wrapped. A career jump to Netflix. A promotion at Amazon.
Warm statements all around.
Per our insiders, that’s the playbook.
‘Contract Not Renewed’: How The Exits Really Work
As Paramount’s takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery grinds toward its day in court, we’re told the changeover is already running quietly underneath, and it runs on paperwork.
“Contract not renewed,” one of our insiders tells us. “Lots and lots of WB staff are in that position, including Gunn and Safran. They all know it’s over.”
How it plays out from there follows a script.
“Most will be allowed to quit in a dignified manner. If they don’t, the contract runs out and they’re out. So technically not fired,” they said.
A second source independently backs the pattern.
“A lot of contracts were not renewed, so some of this is spin from the people themselves,” they tell us, adding that “there are people already in the process of leaving, so expect more people to exit” as Paramount and Warner Bros. consolidate.
The Public Record Backs It Up
You don’t need to take our sources’ word for the playbook. WBD’s own legal department drew the map.
When Pia Barlow, EVP of Originals Marketing for HBO Max, jumped to Amazon MGM in July, WBD sued within days, because Barlow’s contract ran through October 2027. She left mid-deal, so there was something to enforce.
When Katie Martin Kelley left for Netflix this week, there was no lawsuit. Her contract was up. Nothing left to enforce, so the exit gets a graceful announcement instead of a court filing.
The Barlow suit also revealed a third target.
Amazon went after another WBD executive weeks earlier, reported to be believed HBO drama chief Francesca Orsi, and failed, because her deal runs to December 2027. Under this regime, the only clean exits are the ones where the contract has already expired.
Even the trades are picking up the prevailing signal.
Deadline’s own coverage of David Zaslav’s summer noted that WBD executives are exploring their options rather than taking their chances with new management, and read the Amazon suit as a warning shot.
Gunn, Safran, And The Letters Already Written
Which brings this to the two names our insider put on the list.
James Gunn and Peter Safran’s DC Studios deals run through 2027, and per our insiders, those contracts sit in the same not-being-renewed pile as everyone else’s. No “firing” required.
The calendar does the work, which is exactly how Gunn can keep truthfully denying he’s been fired while insiders describe open season on his DC slate.
None of this comes out of nowhere.
Back in February, John Campea publicly stated Gunn goes to Zaslav and asks out of his contract before the end of the year rather than work for the incoming owners, and we were told at the time that Campea has legit sources.
A month later at WonderCon, our own insiders told us Gunn could be out at DC before Man of Tomorrow even hits theaters. The movie still comes out, they said, but by then Gunn will have made a “graceful” exit.
Graceful. That was March. Today’s source says departing staff will be “allowed to quit in a dignified manner.” Same playbook, five months apart.
And those WonderCon insiders have receipts.
They’re the same insiders who told us Hal Jordan dies in Lanterns, confirmed on air five months later, through a takedown campaign Puck News just put under the legal microscope.
The farewell itself is a note our sources have hit before.
As we previously reported, Man of Tomorrow is being loaded with cameos and fan service precisely because it’s potentially Gunn’s final DC movie, one last run for the fans.
Now a second source goes further.
The farewell framing we opened with isn’t a prediction of how the exit will be spun. Per our source, the statement is drafted and sitting ready, waiting on nothing but a date.
The Loyalists Coming In: “woke cesspool will be purged”
The exits are half the story. Per our insiders, the other half is who replaces them.
“Expect more of this,” we’re told. “Ellison’s team of loyalists will oversee marketing, comms, talent relations.” One source puts it far more bluntly: “WB is a woke cesspool that will be purged asap.”
That tracks with what we exclusively reported in July about the data Ellison’s camp is sitting on, internal analytics tracking the audience’s decade-long walk away from messaging-first Hollywood.
The incoming regime believes it knows exactly what it wants its studio to say, and it wants its own people saying it.
And the recruiting has already started in both directions.
“I heard there are already some people in talks of moving from Disney and Amazon to WB,” our second source tells us. The rebuild isn’t waiting for the deal to close.
The Clock
Officially, everything waits. The merger stays frozen until a verdict, with trial set for March 2027, and the $7 million a day ticking fee starts October 1.
Unofficially, the changeover is underway on both sides of the ledger. Contracts lapse and offices empty in Burbank, while theater owners who got a look at Paramount’s plan are genuinely excited about what replaces it.
The purge, as one source calls it, isn’t coming after the gavel. It’s already here.
